Scot held in Pun­jab ‘tor­tured’

A SCOT de­tained in In­dia has been tor­tured by po­lice, cam­paign­ers said yes­ter­day.

Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal, from Dum­bar­ton, was ar­rested in Ja­land­har, Pun­jab, on November 4.

Lo­cal me­dia re­ported his ar­rest was linked to the killing of Hindu lead­ers in the state. But the Sikh Fed­er­a­tion UK said no of­fi­cial charges have emerged and claimed he’s “the sub­ject of some sort of con­spir­acy” by Pun­jab po­lice and politi­cians.

Jag­tar, 30, who got mar­ried in In­dia last month, has told lawyers he has been tor­tured with “body sep­a­ra­tion tech­niques and elec­tro­cu­tion to body parts”.

At a court hear­ing yes­ter­day to ex­tend his re­mand un­til the end of the week, his lawyer re­quested an in­de­pen­dent med­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion of his in­juries.

Sikh Fed­er­a­tion UK chair­man Bhai Am­rik Singh ac­cused the For­eign Of­fice and Bri­tish High Com­mis­sion of “look­ing the other way”.

But last night, the For­eign Of­fice said they take al­le­ga­tions of tor­ture “very se­ri­ously”.

A spokesman added: “Our staff have re­quested con­sular ac­cess so we can be as­sured of his wel­fare.”